Video: An Early Demo Of WebGL 2.0

No full backwards compatibility for you.

As Mozilla Foundation announced the availability of original WebGL (which was based on OpenGL ES 2.0) back in 2011 and then a 1.0.2 update two years later, the development has shifted to WebGL 2 (2013) and now it looks like all companies involved are ready to share some of the progress they have made in the last year or so.

So what exactly does the WebGL 2 have to offer? According to the recently revealed preview, the new graphics library is now based on the OpenGL ES 3.0 API and aims to raise many restrictions that were present in WebGL 1 (such as ability to use more render textures at the same time), developer controlled access to antialiasing, multiple render targets and other goodies.

On a downside, it appears that WebGL 2 is not entirely backwards compatible as some content will have to be modified in order to run in the new library. Also, some extensions were removed from the WebGL 2 API that were originally supported in the original WebGL implementation.

All in all, it look like a pretty neat upgrade and we are waiting for more details in the coming months.

[Via: Mozilla]